In a bid to help bridge the gap between a taxpayer and the tax department, the central board of direct taxes (CBDT) on Thursday notified the new format of form 26AS.

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Form 26AS or the annual statement has been notified to share information with respect to each transaction where taxes are paid or deducted automatically including via TDS/TCS or otherwise.

The new form, notified as per Finance Bill 2020, will now additionally provide information in respect of specified financial transactions which include transactions of purchase/ sale of goods, property, services, works contract, investment, expenditure, taking or accepting any loan or deposits of such value as may be prescribed but not less than of Rs 50,000.

The information about income tax demand, refund, proceedings pending, and completed will also be shared with the taxpayer through this new version of form 26AS.

Further, an enabling provision has been notified to upload information received from any other officer, an authority under any law.

"This particular move will help to know any adverse action initiated or taken under any other law such as custom, GST, Benami Law, etc, which will also be shared in this new version of form 26AS so that the concerned person also knows and also the Income Tax officer will know /access to such information," says Ved Jain, tax expert and former president of ICAI.

As per the new version of Form 26AS, it will also provide information received from any other country under exchange of information about income or assets outside India.

This form also has a new provision of mobile number, email id, and Aadhar no of the taxpayer, which can help direct connectivity of the tax department with the taxpayer.

Another advantage that the taxpayers will now get with this new version of Form 26AS is that the tax-related information will now be live as the tax department will be updating all tax-related information of each taxpayer regularly within 3 months from the end of the month in which such information is received.

A senior CBDT official told CNBCTV18 that the new form 26AS will now be a complete profile of the taxpayer for that particular year as against earlier version which had limited information.

Another important benefit of the new form 26AS is that it will be a ready reckoner of your tax profile for banks, financial institutions, or any other body while carrying out due diligence of the person/ corporate concerned.

"This form will now make it difficult for the taxpayer to hide information from any bank/financial institution about any proceedings against him/it. Now, this form 26 AS will be a complete tax profile of a particular year of each taxpayer. All financial transactions of purchase, sale of property investment, expenditure will get captured in this. Also, any adverse actions/information under any law including income and assets outside India will be in this form 26AS," Jain added.

Amit Maheshwari, Partner, AKM Global said, "Now, some of the information, like transactions in shares, mutual funds and properties would be available in 26AS and would get pre-filled in tax return forms to a limited extent. Taxpayers can exercise a check on the information available in 26AS vis-a-vis the actual transactions carried out by them and include any additional information like transaction cost on sale, cost of improvement at the time of purchase, etc. In a way, it will reduce the effort in tax filing process to some extent and would provide an additional check."

First Published:May 29, 2020 4:31 PM IST